Khartoum is a mess. Rubbish litters the streets. Unformed, open drains cut across footpaths. Formed drains, many open, stink in the heat.
The streets are crowded with people, the traffic crawls through them. The road code appears based on 'nudging'. There isn't a car on the road, no matter how new, or old, that hasn't a dent or scrape, or many. Away from the city centre, and moving, a vehile could be, on any trip, either 'nudger' or 'nudgee', or on some trips even both. Twice our taxis have even 'nudged' people - one, more of a bump.
Come afternoon, and the streets and footpaths have metre square mats layed out and every item of junk and clothing imaginable is spread out for sale. Along footpaths, you duck under the rows of football shirts on sale.
A month or two back, while somewhere sown south, we read the Nile had broken it's banks and flooded Khartoum. It's all the rain from Ethiopia. There's now a layer of silt in all the streets, along with the sand blown in from the desert, dried out, and now the heat sears through a dusty, gritty cloud.
But, I really like this place. It's got a buzz. People cool, fascinating to observe. The streets are a grid pattern making navigation easier(ish). But then there's the alleys and lanes! Locating your hotel isn't always that easy. But a couple of days sorts that. Lots of appeal in this town.
We spent the first couple of days on the permits trail, chasing rail tickets (fruitlessly), and taking a chance of visting the National Museum - how would you say? very Sudanese, but really interesting. Like a low key Egypt. We've moved into a totally differant culture, past and present. Now, very arabic.
The National Museum
We've changed hotels three times. Each time getting better, and cheaper. Work that out. The latest, and we'll stay put, is Al Nakhil, and is quite nice. Only days ago it seems, hot showers were a priority, whereas now they can't be cold enough. We're staying in the travellers 'district' of Souq Al Arabi. A couple of days of permit chasing means you meet and cross paths with the other travellers in town, who come in waves from the ferry/train from the north, or dribs and drabs, like us, from the South east. Not quite true, everyone times their arrival around the train/ferry out. There is seven of us in town when we arrived. We met for dinner, exchange hints for short-cutting bureaucracy, identifying best hotels and so on. There was the two of us, Sara the Swede, Yenneck and another Max both German, Andrew a Pom, and French Canadian Bruno. A pleasant team.
Bruno is an interesting guy. For three years he has travelled, weekly submitting a story to a newspaer back home in Canada. The things you can do, eh?
It's got hotter! Day Three reached 46 degrees! We spend as much on water, buying stacks of 1.5 litre bottles, as on about anything else. Except, maybe, mango juice - terribly yum. No beer - a dry country, alcohol strictly banned. Probably a good thing, imagine the dehydration of a couple of beers in these temperatures! Don't think I've ever experienced such temperatures, it's really something else. You try not to do much during the middle of the day, except find a food place or juice bar for shade and where you can get blasted by a fan. At night you also sleep under the fan. All the fellow travellers walk around with glowing pink faces - and we're no different.
But we are a bit limited in what we can do. Access is limited to lots of areas, and other just so damned hard to get to - for nothing really. The South and Darfur for the obvious reasons, and because of the war with Eretria, and because many towns are centres for refugee camps which they don't want us seeing, and I'm not keen anyway.
Everything takes ages. As you'd expect, everything is written in Arabic, there's miniscule English spoken, and you grind in the heat. What kind of picture do I paint? But, I'm liking it, a lot.
Khartoum is really three cities: Khartoum , Khartoum North, and Omdurman. Each of two to three million people. Each thinking of themselves as quite seperate. Omdurman has its own real identity. The Blue and White Nile rivers meet, go off as the Nile. Imagine the Y-shape this creates, and each city at a junction corner, are you with me? K North serves mainly as a transport hub for the traveller coming/going north.
The group of us knocking around together (sharing company, and making light of the task of working out how to get around - just like travel in the good old days) made a couple of trips to Omdurman for some great experiences. Souqs (markets), day and night - crowded, noisy, and where you choke on the ever-so-strong smell of spices and herbs; a visit to the camel market - our little mini-van (those tiny Suzuki things) got lost and ran out of petrol, prompting having to hire a boy with a donkey and cart to take six of us the last couple of kilometres - to find out it was the wrong day for camel sales. There were quite a few camels still in a yard, but there was a great sheep sale going on. All the people at the sales were just great with us.
Technology is all around, internet and cell phones everywhere, but digital photography and the ability to show the older guys the photos taken of them just went down a treat. We were all under great demand to take photos of the guys with their prized sheep. Great experience.
Our hotel has BBC and Aljazeera, but I'm really missing a good newspaper read. Internet, here, is the fastest we have had all trip including South Africa, but web news sites just aren't the same. There's also comment, editorials etc etc for gaining an insight into the local psyche that I miss. There's two or three English local papers, but they are just political posturing, written in shocker English. They all seem very pro-South Sudan and get banned and closed down regularly, apparently popping up again registered in the South. Interesting, for their badness, first day, but then ... But I have heard on the BBC my old mate, Zambian ex-president Chiluba, is now facing trial for corruption. Beauty.
I don't mean to paint the wrong picture. I'm enjoying the Khartoum experience, and had some real fun, some cool experiences, and seen wonderful things. Besides, I recall Maclom Fraser telling me, what thirty five years ago? - Life was not meant to be easy.
Max
aka Mad
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